Philosophy of a Ninja
by Larry Huss
Summary: An alternate take on Naruto and Neji in the Arena of at the Chunin Exams.


I do not own Naruto, or receive any benefits from it but as an audience member

Philosophy of a Ninja-by Larry Huss

Neji looked across the raked dirt at his grotesque opponent: the dirty and torn orange jump suit, the cocky grin on the foolish peasant face, the cheek markings. Naruto had shuffled his way into an area of the arena that hadn't been cleared before the bout, composed of some sprouting bamboo and low shrubs. How appropriate, trash among the trash.

"Surrender now, Fate decrees that that the High will win, the Low submit." Neji demanded.

The insolent child just took out a kunai, cut off a bamboo stalk, and began to whittle on it. Finally throwing it down he replied with an angry tone: "After what you did to Hinata-chan the High is going to be eating some dirt, and the Low will be dancing on your butt. "

Then Naruto's voice changed, and he began to grin. It wasn't often he could get one of Konoha's many "genius" or "prodigy" ninja to answer his questions. Now at least he had one who couldn't just walk away, or tell him he was too young to understand. Besides, this was _strategy_.

"Anyway, all these people paid good money to see the great Hyuga show-off, you don't want to disappoint them do ya'? Wouldn't be polite, and good manners is important, ain't it? And it ain't like you're so great anyway. Can ya' do this?" Then Naruto produced a Shadow Clone next to him. The Clone thumbed his nose at the Branch house member, then began to undo its pants and turn around.

Lest the dignity of the moment be completely ruined Neji threw a senbon needle with unerring accuracy at the Clone (Ten-Ten had been working with his mid-range attacks, and was an unrelenting task-mistress) and popped it, despite the thirty meters of separation between them.

"Hinata fell because of her inferiority, but not as hard as your Fate will have you suffer. At least she had some degree of grace."

"She had heart and will, you creep. Some things that are important, and I ain't seen them in you yet! And anyway, your fate thing is all crap."

Neji slowly got into the opening position of the family style of combat, and gave a final warning that he knew would be ignored, following which he would joyfully make the trash before him into a broken and bleeding piece of garbage. "None can defeat the dictates of Fate, and yours is that you will be defeated by me."

Naruto began to back up toward a clear area of the fighting field. "Means nothing to me. Means nothing at all. Nobody know what fate is anyway, 'till it happens. Before that you can make a smart guess, from what you know, but there's always something in a fight that could happen ya' ain't ready for. Superior has to be judged by results, not how much like a dancer ya' move, or whether ya' gave your poufy hair the right number of brush strokes in the morning!

"Your so-called superior family fighting style ain't no good unless I get close to ya'. So I'll make you come to me, throwing things all the way as you use up all your charka powering up your eyes, when any Genin could just block them anyways."

By now Naruto was only ten meters from the back wall of the arena, and was pushing kunai into the ground and trying to set up wires between them to produce an entanglement to protect his front. Neji was advancing rapidly straight toward braggart. He knew that even if the protective wires were in place he would be able to evade them, but it would make his attacks look clumsy, and without elegance, as if the Dead Last had actually made him work for the victory. The idiot was so clumsy that he wasn't even throwing anything as he tried to tie the wires to the kunai handles!

Neji decided he wouldn't use his Byakugan and Gentle Fist until he was in close, it was easier to move quickly with regular sight, and he was going to relish the rapidly growing look of terror on Naruto's face as his doom approached like a rushing river.

Neji was very surprised that as he was just entering the cleared space in front of Naruto's pathetic defenses something slammed into right arm with a sharp crack. As he started to turn his head he saw Naruto throwing four kunai as one, with something glittering like a metallic net between the handles. His immediate concern was another Naruto with a stout piece of bamboo swinging at him a second time, this time getting the stroke deflected by Neji blocking with his uninjured arm. It still stung, and prevented the prodigy from seeing if he could use his other hand to make the seals needed to start up the Byakugan. That was when the four kunai tied together with wire arrived and impacted into the dirt all around him, enclosing him in a net. Followed by a Naruto landing with both feet on him, and a whirlwind of pain and the occasional sound of snapping bones. No witty quips, defiant challenges or lectures on how the last little bit of agony was delivered. Just a brief (no more than a minute or two) demonstration in why not to trust in Fate when you should have been paying attention to what you were doing.

As he saw Neji's body (still breathing, killing him wouldn't have carried the right message) out, he smiled. Hinata-chan was avenged, he had advanced, and none of his specially great stuff had been revealed yet. This was certainly fated to be the start of a good day!

Author's Note-

Writing bunny wrote a very sweet story on this, so I'm pretty much writing a fan-fiction on a fan-fiction. Try out the author's other works too, well worth it.

I'm having Naruto talk even rougher than he does usually, as a way of provoking Neji to teach the upstart a lesson in good manners and grammar, as well as humility. He had, of course, made two Shadow Clones while in the bamboo grove, Henged one to look like bamboo, and then trash talked Neji into coming at him without considering a bad talking idiot could have a real plan. Ninjas, gets them every time!


End file.
